You Need Fat!

Hey, it's J.J. here. You know, I've been talking about environmental toxins forever, and laundry detergent is a sneaky one. A lot of them contain harsh chemicals like dyes, preservatives, and even UV brighteners. Those brighteners don't actually clean anything. They just coat fabric so your eyes think things look whiter or brighter. That's more chemicals I don't want on my family's sheets or skin. And if you've got sensitive skin or allergies around the house, this can be a big problem. That's what got my attention about Earth Breeze. It looks like a dryer sheet, but it's actually laundry detergent. You toss one in the washer and that's it. No pouring, no mess, and no heavy plastic jug. Their packaging is lightweight cardboard, which helps reduce plastic waste. And if you choose the fragrance free option, it's gentle, hypoallergenic, non irritating, and non sensitizing. I really like how simple it is and how fresh and clean everything comes out without those unnecessary chemicals. Right now you can try Earth Breeze for up to 40% off with free gifts@earthbreeze.com virgin that's earthbreeze.com virgin for up to 40% off plus free gifts on your first order. Hey, JJ here. Can you believe how fast the holidays are knocking at the door this year? One minute it's pumpkin spice season, the next you're getting your guest room ready and wondering where their wrapping paper went. And that's when I turned to Wayfair. From bedding and towels to holiday decor and last minute stocking stuffers, Wayfair has everything you need to get your home and holidays together fast. And for way less. With Wayfair, I know I can refresh my guest room in no time. Maybe I'll add a soft new comforter or a few holiday throw pillows. With Wayfair, it's so easy and everything arrives super fast. Plus, there's free shipping for any order over $35 easy and total peace of mind. So whether you're hosting, gifting, or just adding those final festive touches, Wayfair has your back. And when the holidays wind down, Wayfair has everything you need to tuck it all neatly away. Smart storage solutions for every room from the kitchen to the closet. Get organized, refreshed and ready for the holidays. For way less, head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. Wayfair. Every style, every home that's W A Y f a I r.com Ray Ban.

Meta Glasses come with open ear audio so you can listen to your favorite music without blocking out the world around you.

Hey, Meta, play Gorgeous.

Here's Gorgeous by Doja Cat.

You can also ask Meta AI questions.

Hey, Meta, when's Doja Cat's next concert?

Doja Cat is playing at the Los Angeles theater next Tuesday.

Sweet Ray Ban. Meta glasses available at Ray Ban stores and other authorized retailers.

Hey, it's JJ Virgin. And welcome to the JJ Virgin lifestyle show, where I talk nutrition, exercise, mindset and lifestyle with some of the coolest people and in the world. And I give you tips that you can put into fast action to uplevel your health so that you can go out there and live that big life that you're meant to live. Now, today's show is all about fat. Fat? Nope, not fat on your body. It's fat in your diet. Why? You need to make sure you're getting the right fats in and that you're eating enough of it because it's going to give you great performance, a great brain. But, you know, I'm gonna let my awesome guest tell you all about that. First off, I have to tell you, when I first met this guy, he's literally a Bono's brother. Looks. Looks like him. I was like, oh, my gosh. Because of the glasses he wears. And he was sitting at the table, we were all having dinner and he was putting butter on his steak. And I'm like, dave, what? What is up with that? Of course, don't knock something till you try it, right? So then he told me about his steak special. Bulletproof coffee with butter and coconut oil. Very special type of brain octane oil he makes. And when I heard about that, I'm like, wow, you should bring that to my health entrepreneur conference, my mindshare summit. And so he brought it out and everybody fell in love with this and him. And that was great the first day, but the second day we ran out and it was like a riot ensued. So once you get hooked on this, I'm going to give my big promo, too. You got to bulletproof coffee a try, and I know you've heard about it unless you've been living under a rock. And Dave will be telling you more about that in the interview, as well as some other amazing things. Everything you ever wanted to know about fat and why you need to eat more of it. So let me tell you a little bit about my buddy, Dave Asprey. He is the most famous biohacker out there, known for biohacking his own physiology. He was A guy who was 300 pounds plus overweight, working in Silicon Valley, trying everything. Sound familiar? I bet you can relate. And nothing was working. And so he just went and spent, gosh, hundreds of thousands of dollars. The thing goes out and here it is, $300,000 going through and hacking his own physiology. He lost 100 pounds without counting calories because so he was over. He was over £300. Make that over £300. Lost £100 without counting calories or doing excessive exercise. And then he started working on all sorts of things for a better brain, to be a better father, husband, friend, how to sleep better be a better entrepreneur, just, you know, hack, hack, hack. And along the way he learned some amazing stuff and one of them really is all about fat. Now I've had the awesome opportunity to get to spend a lot of time with Dave. He's one of my very best friends. Full disclosure, I just went to a thing called 40 years of Zen, which is a week long program that he co facilitates where you really get to uplevel your brain, your iq. It's amazing. I also go to his bulletproof biohacking conference each year and if you were there this last time, you saw the new car that he has. He actually has a butter car, a bulletproof butter car. And he has bulletproof coffee shops opening everywhere. The first one was in Santa Monica, has been visited by every, everyone under the sun around there, all the celebs, etc. And he also has bulletproof films and the first film out is the documentary Moldy that came out in June 2015. Plus he's got his fat water, which is delicious, and I think we're going to be serving at our next event with little tequila on the side. And he's just super cool and super awesome and always has great information to share. So with that, I, I am going to bring my buddy Dave Asprey on. Let's give him a big welcome. All right, let's do it. So, Dave, welcome to the show.

Jj, happy to be here with you.

Oh, I'm so glad you are here with me today and such a massively important topic and so many myths to bust through with all of the craziness about fat. So let's just dive in to the first most important thing because you know, we, I especially, I, I know you did too. I kind of grew up in the fat free era and did so much damage, but it's still out there that we should be eating low fat, which makes me nuts and I know it makes you totally crazy. So why do we need fat? What's it do for us?

Fat makes your hormones. Every cell in your body is made of tiny droplets of fat. That's what the cell membranes are and your neurotransmitters, your brain. Essentially, it's a critical building block, no less important than protein and way more important than sugar, because less than one of your body is sugar.

But yet we build our whole diets based on carbohydrates. Gosh, it's so confusing.

It is confusing. And the good thing is that we are capable of living on lots of different fuel sources. But if you want to feel really good all the time and look good and live a long time, you might want to increase the right fats. And it's really confusing because some fats are bad for you, but a lack of all fat is a really bad idea.

Yeah.

And I know we're going to dive into the right fats because it's all about making that oil change. But before that, I want to just run down, down, like, all the different areas that optimizing your fat can just make things go crazy for you. And having gone to 40 years of Zen with you and really worked on optimizing my brain, I'd like to start there with, like, how does fat help you have an awesome brain and be able to think great.

One of the very first things fat can do for you, like the first day, is it can reduce your hunger. And that sounds kind of crazy, but fat is way more satisfying than either protein or carbohydrates. And if you're having blood sugar crashes, you can get more stable blood sugar by having more of the right kinds of fat. So all of a sudden, when you would have had brain fog and you would have been feeling kind of like a zombie, that hangry feeling, it goes away. And then your brain works better just because you have more energy from fat.

So that brings me to the next obvious segue there is. What about weight loss? Because I think that's one of the places people really freak out about f. I still remember, like, 25 years ago that we thought if you ate fat, it just instantly became fat on your body. It's just so, so ridiculous. But how does fat help you lose weight? I mean, there's satiety for sure. What else?

Well, when you can go into a mode called ketosis, which is your body's natural fat burning mode, that happens when you don't eat sugar and carbohydrates, you can lose weight pretty rapidly. This is how your body directly burns fat for Fuel and you have to cut a lot of carbohydrates out in order to get there. But when you do, fat can melt off the body. So the idea that fat makes you fat is just not borne out. Some fat can make you fat, especially when you eat it with sugar. But the idea that it's somehow a bad type of food for you to eat, it's not borne out by science. And you'll feel the difference if you put a bunch of grass fed butter on whatever vegetables you have next. You'll absorb the vitamins in those vegetables better, but you'll feel really good afterwards and it'll make you happy when you do it. And that's a side effect because you'll eat more vegetables and you'll probably eat less junk food.

Exactly. It's a way different experience to have broccoli with butter on it than just plain broccoli.

In fact, they just looked at the evolution of broccoli and it turns out it evolved with all those little knobbies on the end just to hold butter. There's no other reason for that.

Of course it did. There's nothing better than having a meal with you, Dave Asprey, especially when you are cooking. There's nothing better than having Dave Asprey make bulletproof coffee or a grass fed rib eye with butter all over it. But it is amazing because you're just full for hours, as you should be. Now, what about hormone balance?

Well, people don't usually know this, but the guys behind Raisin Bran and Graham crackers invented those low fat foods with the express purpose of lowering human libido or sex drive. They actually thought that was the root of all evil. So if they could just make foods that made people not think about those things. Wow.

What?

Oh, that's actually true, jj.

Really?

I'm not making that up.

Seriously, I've never heard this one before.

Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Graham Crackers. Literally, if you look into the history of this kind of stuff, they were there because of this incredible fear of sexual desire.

You know, I remember seeing that silly movie. What was that movie about? Kellogg's that crazy.

Oh, he was pretty wacky on many different levels.

Wow.

But like Corn Flakes, that came about because they were trying to suppress this desire, which is based on testosterone, and it was specifically male sexual desire. In that case, women need to have testosterone too. But it turns out your estrogen, your progesterone, as well as testosterone, and even some of your stress hormones like cortisol, which is vitally important for having Energy because you got to be able to handle some stress, right? Well, all of those are based on cholesterol and fat. So if you don't have fat, you do tend to have hormonal swings. And women feel it first. You feel it in your monthly cycle. You're like, wow, I don't feel good, I'm cranky, and I have these. All kinds of different symptoms can happen. And when you just eat enough of the right undamaged fats, all of a sudden you feel different within days. And it's such a like someone turns the light switch back on. It's hard to explain, but no one had ever given me permission to put butter in my coffee and to just crank the fat up to 70, even 80% sometimes in my diet. And when I did that while avoiding the inflammatory fats, I felt so amazing. And the weight loss was just effortless. And it still is to this day, even though I've lost £100 and I've kept it off for all this time. I wouldn't want to do this with corn oil or canola oil because it would cause inflammation, which shows us muffin top as well as makes you tired and brain foggy and all that. But when you do it, the right fats, it's actually just a whole new.

Level of living well and also looking because healthy fats, I look at what we do to try to have better, younger looking skin and hair and nails. And you know, you're eating a high carb, high sugar diet and then putting all these moisturizers on, which is just a ridiculous, they don't work together. You can't counteract all of the sugar you put in your body, which is aging you fast and making you inflamed all the bad fats with some moisturizers. But if you really look at it, when you eat the healthy fats, gosh, people who eat great fats have, I mean, you have Dave, you have fabulous hair and skin.

Why, thank you.

Likewise, JD and you also have an amazing microbiome. So let's talk gut a little bit. And fat so important.

Now a lot of people think, well, microbiome that's taking probiotic capsules or eating yogurt. But it turns out that having the right fats in your gut is also important to maintaining gut integrity and to having proper digestion. So if you're eating tons and tons of vegetables, that's a really good thing. But some kinds of fat can actually suppress the kind of bacteria that are present in the guts of fat people and are less present in the guts of thin people. So if you're eating lots of leafy green vegetables, using things with lots of polyphenols like coffee, which is one of the biggest sources, or chocolate, if you do that, those can feed the bacteria that thin people have more of. Well, the fat can actually suppress the bad bacteria. And when you look at it that way and you look at the very small things in butter, things like conjugated linoleic acid and things like vitamin K2 that come in it, what you end up finding is that fat can help you have a healthy biome. And if you're eating the wrong fats, it'll have an unhealthy effect on you. So it's really simplistic to say fat's good, fat's bad. I would say fat's neither one because some fat gives you really bad skin and makes you feel cranky and some fat gives you good skin and makes you feel thin and gives you tons of energy. So it's like, let's talk about what kinds of fat are important.

Yeah, that's the next. That is the next big, big thing. And it's like, let's make an oil change, let's make a fat change. So what should you eat and what should you absolutely never, ever, ever eat? Because there's just some fats that you just got to think as poison.

It turns out cutting out the bad fats is probably more important than, than getting the optimal perfect fat. So the stuff you should just never eat again would be margarine. That stuff is not okay. Even the so called healthy margarine is almost always not healthy. And if you think about this, one capsule of fish oil is supposed to have health effects for you. That's just one gram. Well, what is one gram of bad oil supposed to do for you? If one gram of good oil is so powerful, it can be that important. You really do need to cut out all margarine.

I can't believe they even sell margarine. It is still shocking to me that that is still out there in the stores. Margarine, the people buy that.

There is more, there's more shelf space dedicated to margarine than there is butter in the average store that I go to.

Oh my gosh. Well, but you're way out there in the boonies.

No, I travel all over the world. I've gone to like Japan and looked. And no matter where you go, there's always more shelf space for margarine, which is horrifying.

Except not Europe. They are totally ahead of us in all this stuff. I don't think they'd like. They don't allow artificial sweeteners in. I don't think I saw any margarine, I hope.

Gosh, I. Oh, they do sell margarine in Europe.

I'm so upset.

They even have a low fat Kerrygold butter, which is. Kerrygold's an Irish grass fed butter that I'm a fan of. It's good butter because it's grass fed, but they have one that's made with reduced fat and guys, you're missing the point. The reason I'm eating the butter is because I wanted more of that.

How would you reduce the fat and butter? Put pump in water. I mean, like, what do you do? There's no.

Just water, air and olive oil or something.

Oh my gosh. That's just. So you can take anything good and start to make it bad. It's just incredible. Okay, so margarine's obviously a complete no go. Which other ones are bad?

Well, if you're going to have things like canola oil or corn oil or vegetable oil, those oils are all oxidized in order to get them out of those plants. Because you can't really do that. Normally what they're doing is they're pouring solvents through the plants, like chemicals, petrochemicals, actually most of them. And then they can get the oil out and they press them. And that oil is polyunsaturated. And every part on the oil that's unsaturated is a spot where the oil can be oxidized or it can go rancid. And when it goes rancid, you don't always taste it right away, but it shows up in rough skin, in inflammation, in muffin top. And your body can't use those oils effectively in order to build cell membranes or in order to build horm. But because you've now got all these oils that have been damaged by chemicals, they've been damaged by heat and damaged by light, they're not stable oils. Your body is supposed to be made out of mostly stable oils. What happens is they get incorporated into your cell membranes and then they sit there and they make free radicals all the time. And then you age more quickly.

Yeah. So they crowd out the good stuff and the bad stuff enters in. And then the other nasty thing there is that our toxins love fat. So these oils, when they use these chemicals to extract them, the toxins go straight on in there and then straight on into you. So it's just. Gosh, it's so awful.

It's that bad. And when I grew up, we learned, well, let's just spray a little bit of this vegetable oil in the pan. I remember my grandfather making me French toast and a quarter inch of canola oil. And it actually makes you dumber. I don't know another way to put it. Your brain doesn't work as well when you feed it bad fat like that. And it can taste good. And if you deep fry in those kinds of fats, oh my God, it's metabolic havoc on you. So you should expect to have sore joints, you should expect to not remember where you put your keys. And you should expect to basically look like your skin is melting off your body over time, because that's what it feels like when you just swap those out for fats that are stable, like grass fed butter, like coconut oil, like avocados, like high quality unheated olive oil, things like that. All of a sudden your body's like, oh, that's what I'm supposed to be running on. And then you don't want to go back.

Well, it's amazing, once you eat that way you taste that other stuff, which people might go, I don't know what was rancid? Well, once you taste the good stuff and you go back and have those chemicals, you're like, oh, it is so awful. But let's talk about. Because you can still take some of these healthy fats and make them bad by using them incorrectly. So what do you do for higher heat cooking and what's best to throw on a salad or throw on your veggies?

When you're going to cook with fat, you want to be careful because fat can carry a lot more heat than water. And you're likely to damage. Like if you're going to deep fry a piece of meat, you're likely to damage the meat as well as the fats in the meat and the fat you're frying with. So I don't recommend deep frying anything. And even if you cook in a pan, adding a little bit of water can help to protect that precious fat so your body can use it. But let's say that you don't really do that all the way. You can choose a fat that's fully saturated and these are much more resilient than canola or corn or even grapeseed oil, which is well known for having a high heat point, but it still has polyunsaturates in it. So what you want to do is you want to pick ghee, which is clarified butter or coconut Oil and either of those is an ideal cooking oil or just plain butter. If you're not worried about a little bit of burning that can happen with butter. I typically cook with butter because I don't want the pan on full high because you're typically are damaging other parts of your food if you overheat the food.

So just for everybody listening, you've got all these different types of fats and depending on the bonds they have, it will depend on how easy it is to break them apart or not. And when you cook at higher heats, you want things that are saturated so you can't break apart the bonds. Because when you break apart the bonds, you basically destroy the fats. You make them rancid. And if you're eating rancid fats, they're rancid fats inside you. So you don't want to be rancid. So don't eat rancid fats. Now we talked avocado, coconut oil. Like give me, let's just do just for everybody. So they've got it. The nice rundown of all of Dave's favorite fats.

Well, grass fed butter, coconut oil, egg yolks that are not hard cooked. You want to soft cook your egg yolks to protect the precious fats and some of the other structures that are in them. Animal fat, actually bacon, beef, things like that. As long as the animals are from grass fed or pastured animals, they form fats that are really, really helpful for your health, believe it or not. They just need to be high quality and not burned. And from there I think we mentioned avocado olives, olive oil and a moderate amount of nuts, but not an excessive amount of nuts because nuts don't have enough saturated fat in them. Which sounds like, like what? Did he just say enough saturated fat? Yeah, you've got to have enough saturated fat because that's what a lot of your body's based on. The only fat, your cells or fat, actually it's your liver. But the only fat your body can manufacture itself is a saturated fat. So mother nature didn't equip us to onboard make saturated fats for no reason. She did that because, well, we need that. It's vital to our survival.

And finally, just because I know everybody listening will just want to know it. Even though you've probably said this, gosh, a hundred thousand times, but just give the premise behind my favorite way to start the day, Bulletproof coffee. And I just have to tell everyone before you do this, the story of when we had you come out to the mindshare summit the first time. And I said, just bring some of that coffee. And the first day you did it and everyone was thrilled. And the second day you ran out and it was like a riot. It was incredible. So just explain for people who don't understand because I'm sure you still hear all the time. There's that crazy guy that puts the butter in the coffee. The reason behind it, because once you try this, you'll be hooked and you'll be hooked on the way you feel, which is incredible.

Bulletproof coffee came about from an experience drinking yak butter tea in Tibet. That just turned my brain on in a different way. And I came back and I worked out the recipe, which is the bulletproof upgraded coffee bean. These are tested to be free of mold toxins that can cause anxiety and jitter. It's blended, you brew it, then you blend it with grass fed butter and it has to be grass fed for it to work. And another oil called brain octane oil, which is a small fraction of what's in coconut oil. When you blend these things together, you get a creamy, foamy latte like thing. But when you drink it, it helps you to turn off hunger in a very noticeable way, as in you don't even have one thought about food. No cravings, no hunger, no nothing for four or sometimes even six hours. So it's a really big thing to just be free of food cravings. And it puts your body in a mild state of ketosis or fat burning. So you just feel amazing. And people feel the difference within 15 minutes of drinking it and they're like, okay, I want to feel this way all the time.

It is my thing. When I know I'm going to be taping all day. That is my secret weapon because it just keeps you totally focused and blood sugar stable. It's incredible. So thank you so much, Dave, for hanging out with me today. And I want to remind everyone listening, first of all, got to go to bulletproof.com. there's a bunch of great info there, Link to your blog, link to your podcast, but also you have an incredible cookbook. So if you're listening right now, going well, you know, how do I put this into action? Bulletproof diet cookbook is out. You'll want to grab that as well. So again, bulletproof.com and Dave, thank you so much for being here. And after the break, stick with me. I'm going to be answering a listener's question.

Want a better quality of sleep while also calming your brain? Now there's A great tasting way to do it. JJ Virgin's Lemon flavored sleep Candy contains amino acids and nutrients to help you naturally fall asleep with ease. This gluten free, non GMO dairy free sleep assistant also helps you stay asleep so you feel rejuvenated and more relaxed. So if you want to get a better night's sleep, visit www.jjvirgin.com products and try JJ Sleep Candy.

Welcome back. So this is the time where I answer a listener's question. And today's question is one that I hear so often, and it comes from Linda.

Hi, my name's Linda and I'm 65. I have neuropathy and it's been stopping me from exercising, which means I've gained like 10 pounds. And I'm getting so discouraged. I wonder if you can help me because I'm doing your program, but I'm getting discouraged because it's taking me so long to lose any weight. Thank you.

So we queried our list and what we found was such a common issue was people losing ground because of an injury, because they got sick or because of something. You know, just life got in the way. And so whether it's neuropathy or an injury or something that's gotten in the way of you being able to exercise, taking you off track, what do you do? And first of all, congratulations, Linda, on asking the right question and not giving up. And I am, you know, sorry to hear you're going through this. Neuropathy is so frustrating. A couple things there you might want to look at is number one, when you can't exercise, if you can't in fact exercise at all, for someone out there, listening, diet becomes super key. So you really end up with no margin for error. So what I want you to do is whether it's the sugar impact diet or the virgin diet, get back in, go through the process, tighten it up. Once you're through one, go back into the other one and just make sure you're super tight on getting enough water. And remember, water can boost your metabolism as much as 30%, 300 calories a day just by drinking water throughout the day in between your meals. Getting adequate sleep, so important for insulin sensitivity, which is big for neuropathy, and managing stress, which I know this in itself would be stressful for you. So that's key. But then also look at what can you do to exercise? Are there some things that you can do despite having the neuropathies and for anyone listening with whatever you have going on? When I was 17, I had a severe injury during pointe ballet and I tore my ACL and my right knee and it has been a problem for 30 plus years. I actually finally had a total knee replacement and I learned after five knee surgeries how to exercise, how to exercise using my arms, using one leg. You know, I learned how to do a lot of different workarounds. And so if you've had an injury and you're coming back, work with a physical therapist to see what you can do. Because even if it's isometrics, something in the pool, see what you can do to work around it to maintain some muscle mass or maybe you can do some electrical muscle stim, see what you can do to work around it. But again, and you really want to do that so you don't end up with the thin outside fat inside syndrome, the Tophi syndrome. But again, and you can maintain a lot of this purely by really tightening up the diet, making sure that you're getting optimal amounts of protein, good healthy fats and a fiber rich diet and keeping down into the low sugar impact part of the plan. So I'd stay low sugar impact in the sugar impact diet and just live there and live really clean and off the gluten and the soy and the corn and all that. So hope that helps. And again, you know, I know part of life is we are getting, we're going to get knocked off course. It is just part of life what you need to do and what separates, you know, separates us as those people who get back on track, get back on course. And that's where it is so important to have a good support community. Jump on my Facebook page and have a great accountability partner in there to help you as well. Because these things will happen. It's what you do with them when they happen that makes all the difference. Now if you'd like to submit a question for me, and I love getting questions, just go to jjburgin.com ask and you can leave a voicemail for me and I can't wait to hear from you now. One more way. I'd love to hear from you. I would hugely appreciate if you could jump on Stitcher or itunes and leave a review for me. It helps a bunch and be sure to subscribe and share the show with your friends. This is JJ Virginia signing off and reminding you that you are worthy. Dare to live a life that matters.

Toyota Thon is on. So stop by your local Toyota dealer and test drive a stylish new Camry or sleek and capable Corolla with great financing and lease options available to qualified customers. Visit buyatoyota.com for more Toyota Let's Go.

Places the holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in more places that could expose you more to identity theft. But LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second. If your identity is stolen, our US Based restoration specialists will fix it, guaranteed your money back. Don't face the drained accounts, fraudulent loans or financial losses alone. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com podcast terms apply.